"Answer me, where are you going ?" "Where am I going?
Oh, ah--to the Palais Royal." Her eyes opened very wide at that, and wandered over me with a look that was passing eloquent.

Indeed, I was a sorry spectacle for any woman's eyes--particularly a pretty one's.

Splashed from head to foot with mud, my doublet saturated and my beaver dripping, with the feather hanging limp and broken, whilst there was a rent in my breeches that had been made by Canaples's sword, I take it that I had not the air of a courtier, and that when I said that I went to the Palais Royal she might have justly held me to be the adventurous lover of some kitchen wench.
But unto the Palais Royal go others besides courtiers and lovers--spies of the Cardinal, for instance, and in her sudden coldness and the next question that fell from her beauteous lips I read that she had guessed me one of these.
"Why did the mob pursue you, Monsieur ?" There was in her voice and gesture when she asked a question the imperiousness of one accustomed to command replies.

This pretty queenliness it was that drove me to answer--as I had done before--in a bantering strain.
"Why did the mob pursue me?
Hum! Why does the mob pursue great men?
Because it loves their company." Her matchless eyes flashed an angry glance, and the faint smile on my lips must have tried her temper sorely.
"What did you do to deserve this affection ?" "A mere nothing--I killed a man," I answered coolly.

"Or, at least, I left him started on the road to--Paradise." The little flaxen-haired doll uttered a cry of horror, and covered her face with her small white hands.